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9 December 2023  Amanda J. Brook  Senior Product Manager
 

Summary
Understand the reasons behind your USB disk not being recognized in Windows 10 and find efficient ways to troubleshoot this problem. Start exploring solutions now!



Table of contents

table iconI. What causes the U disk not to be displayed in Windows 10?
table iconII. How to solve the problem that the U disk is not displayed in Windows 10?
table iconIII. Use Renee Undeleter to recover lost data in the USB flash drive
usb not showing up windows 10

I. What causes the U disk not to be displayed in Windows 10?

The problem that the U disk is not displayed is relatively common, and there are many reasons for this problem. Let’s take a look at what causes this problem.
● The USB driver has not been updated in time
● Device driver letter conflict or no drive letter
● File system errors
● Virus intrusion or malware attack
The above are several common reasons that cause the U disk not to be displayed. You can make a preliminary diagnosis and perform simple repairs, such as restarting the computer; re-plugging the device; connecting the U disk to another computer to see if the problem is resolved. If the problem persists, I suggest that you try to solve it in the following ways.

II. How to solve the problem that the U disk is not displayed in Windows 10?

1. Update the U disk driver

Specific steps are as follows:
Step 1: Run the Windows 10 computer, connect the U disk to the computer, and then press (Windows+R) on the keyboard at the same time to open the running window. After entering the command (devmgmt.msc), click the (OK) button to enter the Device Manager.
Enter the device manager command
Step 2: Next, in the “Disk Drive”, right-click the USB flash drive you want to update the drive, and select the (Update Driver) option.
update USB Driver
Step 3: Next, select the (Automatically search for updated driver software) option, and then follow the instructions to complete the update of the U disk driver.
update Driver Confirm

2. Reinstall the U disk drive

If you want to reinstall the U disk driver, you need to uninstall the driver and reconnect the U disk. The specific steps are as follows:
Step 1: Run the Windows 10 computer, enter (device manager) in the “search box” in the lower left corner and open it.
Open device manager
Step 2: Next, in (Disk Drives), select the USB flash drive that cannot be displayed in File Explorer and select the (Uninstall Device) option. After the operation is complete, safely pull out the USB flash drive and try to connect again to see if the problem is resolved.

3. Create a new partition

If after updating or reinstalling the driver, the USB flash drive shows as unallocated space in the disk management, which will also cause the USB flash drive to fail to show in the file explorer, it is recommended that you create a new partition for data storage Prepare.
Step 1: Press the (Windows+X) keys on the keyboard at the same time. Then in the pop-up list, select the (Disk Management) option.
Step 2: Then right-click the unallocated space on the U disk and select the (New Simple Volume) option.
Windows Create Partition
Step 3: Next, you can customize the partition size, drive letter, file system (NTFS, exFAT, FAT32, etc.) and other parameters, and then wait for the operation of creating a new simple volume to complete. Then you can open the file explorer or this computer to see if the USB flash drive is displayed.
create Partition

4. Add or change drive letter

When your USB flash drive cannot be displayed, it may be because the device does not have a drive letter or the drive letter conflicts with other drives. You can add or change the drive letter in the following way. The specific steps are as follows:
Step 1: Run the computer, type (computer management) in the “search box” in the lower left corner, and then click to enter the computer management interface.
computer management
Step 2: Next, click (Disk Management) on the left window, if you see a drive without letters, please check whether it is a USB flash drive that cannot be displayed.
disk Management Change Driver Letter
Step 3: After confirming the completion, right-click and select the (Change Drive Letter and Paths) option.
Step 4: Next click (Add) to add a drive letter to the U disk.
disk Management Change Driver Letter 1
Step 5: Next, check (Assign the following drive letter) and select a letter, then click (OK) to add the drive letter.
disk Management Change Driver Letter 2

5. Fix file system errors

If your USB drive has a file system error, it will appear as RAW and cannot be displayed and accessed in File Explorer. Here, the file system error means that the file system is not supported by the Windows 10 system or the file system is damaged due to misoperation or other failures. To fix file system errors, you need to format the drive, that is, convert RAW to a file system supported by Windows 10, such as NTFS or FAT32. The specific operation steps are as follows:
Step 1: Connect the U disk to the computer, and press the (Windows+X) keys on the keyboard at the same time. Then in the pop-up list, select the (Disk Management) option.
Step 2: Next, find the RAW drive that needs to be formatted (i.e. the USB drive that is not displayed), right-click on it and select the (Format) option.
disk show to be raw
Step 3: Select the file system, check (Perform quick format), click (OK), and follow the instructions to complete the formatting process. After the formatting operation is completed, the above problem can be solved. Please check: Features and differences of FAT32, NTFS, exFAT.
quick Format
The above are some common solutions that the U disk does not display. If there is important data in the U disk, you can use Renee Undeleter to scan and restore the data in the U disk, no matter when the partition becomes unallocated space or the disk file system This software can be used when the disk is RAW or after the disk is formatted.

III. Use Renee Undeleter to recover lost data in the USB flash drive

1. What is Renee Undeleter?

Renee Undeleter It is a software specially used to restore various data files. When you accidentally delete important files, empty the recycle bin, or format the disk/storage, you can use this tool to retrieve the lost data. The software covers four functional modules, including file recovery, format recovery, partition recovery and image creation. Therefore, it can help you solve all possible data loss problems that may occur during system use in an all-round way, which is very convenient.
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2. How to restore the lost data in the USB flash drive with Renee Undeleter?

Step 1: Connect the USB flash drive with lost data to the computer, download, install and run Renee Undeleter, and select the (Partition Recovery) option in the main interface.
Note: Do not install on the disk that needs to restore data, so as not to cause data overwriting.
select whole disk scan to scan disk in renee undeleter
Data recovery function introduction:
File recovery: Quickly retrieve files lost due to accidental deletion or emptying the recycle bin.
Format recovery: Quickly recover files lost due to inaccessible or formatted partitions.
Partition recovery: Partition information can be analyzed and obtained, and the entire partition can be fully scanned.
Create a mirror: A mirror can be created for a partition to back up the current partition state.

Step 2: Next, select the U disk to scan, and click (Next). Select (default setting) on the advanced setting interface.
Select target device for partition recovery
Step 3: After that, the software will analyze the U disk device. After the analysis, a prompt window of “select the partition you need to scan” may pop up. You can select the corresponding partition according to your needs. If you don’t select it, all partitions will be scanned. It will take longer. After scanning, you can double-click the file in the preview window on the right to preview it, then select the file you want to restore, and click the (Recover) button in the lower right corner to restore the selected file.
preview before recovery
Step 4: Next, select the target folder, click (Browse) to select another disk to save the recovered files, and then click the (Recover) button to start the file recovery command, you just need to wait patiently.